New Zealand Listener

New Zealand Listener is the country’s most respected general interest magazine, bringing you a wide variety of news, stories, columns, reviews, plus TV listings, every week.

Masthead

Power to make a difference • Electricity market reform, which so far has only driven up gentailer share prices, can help the whole country if done right, says Huia Burt.

Funds grab

Bright Lines • For our Limerick Competition we asked you to write a limerick on the World of WearableArt show.

Quips& Quotes

10 Quick Questions

Turning political gold into sh*t • The PM puts his alchemist hat on backwards by seemingly fluffing the coalition’s beneficiary-bashing surefire vote winner.

Drones stoke hybrid war fears

Welcome to the cannabis club

Cunning adaptors

First, do some harm

The media-political feedback loop

Mind the gap • The causes of brain disease continue to elude researchers and a new approach is needed, says a US neuroscientist.

Current Practice

Balancing act • In this edited extract from Elusive Cures, Nicole Rust argues for the middle ground in the treatment of mental illness.

Balibo Five remembered • 50 years after five television newsmen including Kiwi Gary Cunningham were murdered by Indonesian soldiers, they are being honoured.

Nailed to the cross • The second of two reports on the murder trial of a mother who killed her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases in a storage warehouse.

Cheerful without good cause • It’s no surprise Elspeth Sandys draws on challenging characters in two new works – she’s had a life full of them.

Talking TikTok • Self-proclaimed linguistic purists are delulu if they think the language of social media heralds the end of civilisation.

Sparta’s fall • The martial Greek city-state allowed political misjudgments to undermine its battlefield heroics.

Bestsellers

The price of romance • Jane Austen knew the material cost of marriage and an economist weighs in with the formula for women today.

Short cuts

Read all about it • From mythical Māori beasts to a universal city, cat dress-ups, a fishing how-to, Ann Packer scours the kids’ shelves.

Reality bytes • Moderation’s account of the goings-on in the life of a VR games controller leaves the reader wanting another helping.

Over the horizon • Kiwi stories feature characters born of words and deeds.

Bestsellers

Mother lode • The Pike River movie brings Robyn Malcolm and Melanie Lynskey together on screen for the first time, playing Sonya Rockhouse and Anna Osborne.

Out of the dark • Pike River director Robert Sarkies believes the disaster exposes flaws in Kiwi culture.

Stake in the heartland • Wellington’s country troubadours The Warratahs are this year’s inductees into the NZ Music Hall of Fame. CHRIS BOURKE charts their history, legacy and the roads they’ve travelled.

Rock’s ‘Rocky’ • Dwayne Johnson transforms himself in gritty MMA biopic.

Old-faced liar • Scarlett Johansson’s directing debut has nonagenerian fibbing about touchy topic.

Ridge to nowhere • NZ On Air’s largesse towards a Kiwi co-production may have been overly optimistic.

Tv Picks of the week

Tv Films

Saturday/rāhoroi October 18

Sunday/rātapu October 19

Monday/rāhina October 20

Tuesday/rātū October 21

Wednesday/rāapa October 22

Thursday/rāpare October 23

Friday/rāmere October 24

Radio October 18

Rhyme of the ancient modernist • A rhapsody about a radical Bohemian ahead of his time.

On Huntington’s trail • Efforts to slow progression and repair the damage of the relentless...